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It is stated in the Jataka that the Sakyas did not do obeisance to Siddhartha on the ground as he was younger in age, but were afterwards made to do so on seeing` a miracle performed by him. As far as Sakya law is concerned it is said that Sakyas allowed a man only one wife. The Sakyas had a special constitution. They were a small tribe and very proud of their birth. They would not give one of their girls in marriage even to such a powerful prince as Pasenadi of Kosala. Among such a people, marriage was generally confined within the tribe itself, and the number of marriageable girls being limited, many adult males would have to go without a wife if polygamy prevailed. Hence the law had grown up among them limiting the number of wives to one. But the Sakyas had no objection to polygamy on religious grounds.

`The Sakyas were desperate in the matters of birth. When a Sakya child was born, it was carried to the temple of Isvaradeva to be presented to the god. The Sakyas contracted marriages within their own tribe, and even their ruling house did not enter into matrimonial alliance with any of the numerous princely houses in India, unlike the royal houses of Kosala, Magadha and Videha. Historical records say that when the marriage of PrinceSiddhartha was decided upon at the council of five hundred Sakyaelders, it was mandatory to select a bride for him from among themselves. Thus it can be said that the clannish custom among the Sakyas perhaps gave rise to the idea that they married their sisters.

The learning of one or other of the arts was incumbent upon every Sakya youth, for, as we have seen, no father would give his daughter in marriage to an idler or ignoramus. There was also a school for archery at Kapilavastu, where the Sakyas were trained. The Sakyasbeing a Kshatriya tribe were devoted to warlike pursuits, and were surrounded on all sides by warlike tribes thus the school of archery was necessarily a flourishing institution in the Sakyakingom.